


The Torture of Small Talk With Someone You Used to Love

by elliot_cant_write



Category: Dublin Murder Squad Series - Tana French
Genre: 4 things + 1 thing, and a bit post cannon for trespasser, bc im boring, go listen to fourth of july by fall out boy before you read this its important, lots of reflection (?), maybe some closure (?), not in first person bc i couldn't do that to myself, post cannon for the likeness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 10:48:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21968080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elliot_cant_write/pseuds/elliot_cant_write
Summary: "Cassie Maddox had an unfortunate habit of running into people she shouldn’t have."aka four times Cassie ran into people from her past and it sucked plus one time she ran into someone and it didn't
Relationships: Cassie Maddox & Abigail "Abby" Stone, Cassie Maddox & Justin Mannering, Cassie Maddox & Rafael "Rafe" Hyland, Cassie Maddox/Rob Ryan (former), Cassie Maddox/Sam O'Neill
Comments: 5
Kudos: 11





	The Torture of Small Talk With Someone You Used to Love

1.  
Cassie Maddox had an unfortunate habit of running into people she shouldn’t have.

The first time, she had been minding her own business and freezing her ass off. She was supposed to be meeting Sam for dinner, but he had gotten hung up at work, leaving her stuck on a corner as snowflakes started to fall and get caught in her hair. 

“For fucks sake,” She muttered, pulling her hat farther down over her ears before setting off down the street towards where she was almost certain there was a coffee shop that she and Rob used to-

Anyway.

Reaching the coffee shop, Cassie rushed through the door and into the warm air, and felt relieved for exactly two seconds until she saw who was at the counter.

“Oh!” She hadn’t meant to say anything, but it burst out on her shocked breath. She wished she could take it back, but the girl had already looked up.

“Oh.” Abby said drily. “It’s you.”

It had been four years since Cassie had last seen Abby, and she looked better. Her face had more color in it, and just. She just looked happier. 

“You’re growing out your bangs.” Cassie said, apparently having lost all control over what came out of her mouth. 

Abby almost smiled, and then looked mad at herself for doing so. “It’s been awhile. And I don’t think I’m the same person I was anymore.”

“Me too.” Cassie said, reaching up to touch the tips of her hair, much longer than she or Lexie had ever kept it before. 

“So,” Abby’s tone returned to all business, as if she and Cassie had never met and she was just another customer. “What can I get for you.”

“Uh, just a black coffee.” 

Abby nodded, reaching for a cup and typing a few things in to the cash register. “I’ll let you know when it’s ready.”

Cassie was about to go take a seat, when she accidentally caught Abby’s eye, and she just had to say it. “I still think about Lexie all the time.”

Abby had ducked her head down so Cassie couldn’t see her face, but she reached up as if to wipe her eyes before letting her arms fall to wrap around herself. “Me too,” She said quietly. “Justin and I put flowers on her grave on her birthday every year.”

When Cassie paid, she tipped fucking well. Abby deserved better than she got. 

2.  
The second time was, unfortunately, on a plane.

It wasn’t a long flight or anything. Cassie was going to visit a friend in London, just for two days, and when Sam had dropped her off at the airport at about nine that morning, she had been excited. It had been awhile since she had traveled and while she was sad that Sam had to work and couldn’t come, she was looking forward to the change in scenery.

She had quickly gotten through security, grabbed a drink, and was settled into the lounge area waiting for her flight to board when her phone buzzed with a text from Sam.

SAM: Text me when you land. Love you.

Cassie tried not to smile too widely, but the corners of her lips definitely turned upwards. This was all stupidly domestic and it made her so happy. 

CASSIE: I will! Love you too

She waited around for a few minutes, but it was not long before boarding began. Cassie grabbed her small wheeled bag and headed up to get her ticket checked before boarding.

Things were going pretty well. She boarded the plane, found her seat, put her luggage up, and was comfortable in her (window) seat, ready to go. Everything was going pretty well until the person supposed to sit next to her got there and it was none other than Justin fucking Mannering. 

Cassie belatedly thought that that was probably the only time his name would ever be phrased quite like that.

“Oh,” He said, polite even as she saw the panic brewing behind his tired eyes and carefully neutral expression. “Detective Maddox. It’s nice - it’s a surprise to see you here.”

Cassie rarely felt like a bad person. She felt like a bad person right now. “I can ask if I can change seats. Fuck, I can take a later flight. Say the word and I’ll be gone.”

She could tell that Justin wanted to take her up on that offer so badly. “No, it’s fine.” He still hadn’t sat down. “It’s only an hour and a half flight anyway; I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you.”

Somebody, apparently sick of waiting for Justin to move, pushed past him, finally giving him the motivation he needed to actually sit down. He only had a messenger bag with him, and he just set it in his lap, almost like a shield between him and Cassie. It also didn’t escape Cassie’s notice how he was sitting as far over in his seat as he could, choosing to have the arm rest jamming into his side rather than risk being too close to her. And he still looked fucking scared. 

Absurdly, Cassie wanted to comfort him. She wanted to hold his hand the way she - Lexie - had so many times, she wanted to apologise, she wanted to know if he was okay, she wanted to have Justin - safe, kind, scared - be a person she could love again.

Cassie didn’t often miss the Whitethorn house and the months she had spent with four of its inhabitants. Sometimes, she’d wake up with the taste of Justin’s cooking on her lips and the sound of Abby’s lovely voice in her ears, but regardless of how hard she tried, she could never remember the dream, and that was something that she had learned to be okay with. But seeing Justin, seeing Justin afraid of her, made her long for the nights of the five of them playing card games, reading, talking, the nights where everything was simple and she could forget that this was a temporary thing, and that it was a temporary thing because she was going to be the one to ruin it. 

Was it bad that knowing what had happened - what had really happened, not what everyone said had happened - hadn’t changed her feelings either? She still remembered it all as so safe, her and Abby painting one another’s nails, her laying with her head in Justin’s lap as he read, her grinning back at Daniel every time he said something stupidly clever and funny, her and Rafe picking at one another in a way that could never hurt. Whitethorn felt safe. Funny that she, the one who didn’t belong, still felt that for what she was fairly certain had become Justin’s own personal hell.

Cassie tried to mind her own business. She had brought a book with her - it was Eliot’s Middlemarch, an irony that did not escape her notice - and she tried really hard to let it absorb her as they waited for the plane to take off. 

It took every ounce of her self control to keep from looking over at Justin every ten seconds. It was just fucking weird. At least when she had run into Abby a few months previous, it was a short interaction where they both had things they were supposed to be doing. It was uncomfortable, but it was short and productive. Cassie had no idea how she was going to sit here for over an hour next to Justin, who upon glancing at she saw was now digging his nails into his arms and very intentionally staring directly ahead so he wouldn’t accidentally make eye contact with her. For fucks sake. 

“Really, Justin,” She finally said, ignoring how he seemed to shrink into himself even more now that they were talking again. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable and I don’t want you to spend the next hour and a half squished up against the arm rest. I can ask to move. I promise I don’t mind.”

He did at least seem to unwind a bit at that. “Um. Rafe said I need to confront what happened, what really happened. Well, my therapist says the same thing, and I should probably care a bit more about what she says than what Rafe says. But I don’t think bolting because I see one person who relates to all...that counts as confronting it. But if you want to move, please do. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable either.”

Cassie felt her heart break a little. “I mean, I get where you’re coming from, but it’s also okay to have boundaries. I know there’s some people from my past that it would screw me up to see, so I’m not putting myself in situations where I would see them. And I don’t feel that it’s unreasonable for me to be outside of your boundaries.”

Justin laughed a bit, but Cassie knew him well enough, had heard this from him enough times, to know that it was just covering up that he was on his way to crying. “It’s just all so hard to think about it, you know? You were one of my best friends for almost a month and yet I’ve never really met you.”

“Yeah,” Cassie said quietly. This whole conversation felt absurdly surreal, where they were on the weird middle ground between should-be and can’t-be when it came to being familiar with one another. People who used to love one another but also people who never really did. “I’m so sorry. I know it doesn’t make any difference, but I never thought that things would have turned out as they did.”

“Yeah, me too.”

They resumed their previous awkward silence, Cassie going back to her book and Justin very determinately pretending he was asleep. It wasn’t until the plane had landed - Justin may have actually gone to sleep and Cassie ended up finding her book more intriguing than she expected - that Justin acknowledge her presence again. 

“You gave Abby the file.”

Cassie nodded. “Did you see it?”

“No,” He said quickly, and she really wasn’t surprised. “But I know she read it, and I think it helped. It was how we all ended up talking again, finally. So thanks, I guess.”

“I’m glad.” Cassie said truthfully as . “And I hope you can find closure, one day.”

Justin just shrugged. “I hope you do too.”

Cassie waved - she really fucking waved; what on earth was she thinking? - before quickly leaving. This conversation didn’t seem like something that should have occured and she didn’t want to draw it out any longer. 

It wasn’t until she was out of the airport, sitting in the back of a taxi driving to her friend’s apartment, that she really thought about the last thing Justin had said to her. Cassie didn’t think about Whitethorn often. But she did think of them. She’d see a tuft of blond hair and think it was Rafe. She’d hear singing and think of Abby. She’d stumble across an interesting piece of information and think of Daniel.

Weird that Justin somehow knew her well enough to tell.

3.  
The third time, Cassie was trying to waste time while waiting for Sam, and was probably hanging out somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be. 

That seemed to be a common theme in her life, but it wasn’t either her or Sam’s fault that on murder squad shit just sometimes happened. Even if that shit was just O’Kelly deciding to leave Sam’s (handwritten) report exactly where one of the floaters ended up spilling an entire cup of coffee, leading to Sam having to work late to rewrite the whole thing. Cassie, naturally, had already driven almost all of the way in when Sam called her to tell her he was going to be late, so she decided to just come in and wait around and maybe hang out with some old friends. She’d heard Cooper was supposed to be around sometime soon. It had been ages since she’d seen him.

“Maddox, your boy isn’t down here, if that’s who you’re looking for.” Bernadette said from behind her computer, giving Cassie a look over the top of her glasses. 

Cassie sighed. “I know, O’Kelly’s got him staying late. Is it okay if I just wait down here?”

They both looked outside to where the rain was coming down in thick sheets. “Go ahead,” Bernadette said, sounding like this was all a bit above her, which Cassie supposed it sort of was. “Sophie’s in the back if you want to say hi.”

That got Cassie’s attention. “Bernadette, you are an absolute gift to humanity.”

“Tell that to just about anyone who works here.” Bernadette said dryly as Cassie ducked into the back to look for Sophie. 

She had hardly gotten around the corner when her phone buzzed. She absentmindedly reached into her pocket, expecting it to be another message from Sam. It wasn’t.

It was a message from one of her contacts at the lower level:

HEY GOT A NOTIFICATION FOR SOMEONE YOU’VE GOT A TAB ON. MIGHT WANT TO COME DOWN.

“Shit shit shit.” Cassie mumbled as she turned around and headed back to the front, already pressing her phone to her ear to call Sam. She thought Bernadette said something as she left, but it was mostly drowned out by the sound of the phone ringing in her ear. Sam wasn’t picking up. 

It went to voicemail as Cassie got back in her car. “Hey, Sam. I’ve got to go down to the station and look into something. I’ll try to get back as soon as possible, hopefully before you’re done. Call me if anything changes. Love you, bye.”

She drove down to the station her contact worked at, trying not to speed despite how stressed she was. There weren’t many people she had tabs on. Following the whole Frank thing, she decided to take a page out of his book and add for anyone who heard the name Lexie Madison to contact her. Then - for personal and a little immoral reasons - she had feelers out related to Rob and his old case. And the Whitethorn crew…

Oh, fuck.

Cassie pressed her foot on the gas, deciding that she didn’t give a shit about speeding after all. What was the chance that she would end up seeing one of them again, so recently after she had run into Justin and Abby? That something bad had happened to one of them?

Cassie pulled into the parking lot and practically fell out of her car, pulling her hood up over her hair, though it had already gotten soaked. She locked the doors and shoved her keys into her pocket, digging around for her ID. She flashed it to the person at the desk. “Got a call from Marshall?”

“Right down the hallway. Looks busy though.”

“Thanks.” Cassie took off down the hallway to where he had indicated. 

Marshall was at the end of the hallway, seemingly engaged in an argument with a tall blond guy facing away from Cassie. She felt her heart sink. Rafe.

Marshall caught her eye, his expression screaming ‘help me’. Cassie tried to pull her racing thoughts together - why was Rafe here why was he yelling at Marshall was everyone okay was that blood what the fuck does Marshall think she’s going to do to put a stop to this - at least enough not to come across as too uncomfortable. “Rafe?” She kept herself from reaching out to touch his shoulder. “Everything okay?”

He barely turned to look at her, his face twisted up in an angry expression that Cassie hated that she recognized from every time he got drank too much back at Whitethorn. “Fuck off, Lexie.” He snapped, already going back to yelling at Marshall - something about someone deserving something - before Cassie could process what he said.

Horribly, she didn’t even initially realise it was wrong.

Cassie found out later that Rafe had punched someone at a bar for making an arson joke. She thought maybe it was for the better that he hadn’t recognized her. Maybe the wound was a little too fresh here. 

4.  
The last time, Cassie just wanted to buy some fucking chocolate ice cream.

It was an oddly hot summer day, and she and Sam had spent the day being annoyed at one another for no real reason, complaining about the heat, and taking turns going to refill the ice tray.

Finally, just as the sun was starting to dip a bit in the blindingly blue sky, Cassie announced that she was going to go buy some ice cream at the store a few blocks away, to which Sam barely gave a response more than a nod. She wasn’t mad. Neither of them were really mad, she knew, it had just been a long day. A long, bad day. 

Going into the store, her breath caught as the strong blow of the air conditioning hit her sweaty skin in a way that made her feel shockingly, wonderfully cold. She gave an offhand wave to the kid working at the checkout, slowly heading back towards the frozen section. She made no effort to hurry, hoping that the cold air of the store would cool her off enough that she wouldn’t end up trying to pick a fight with Sam the second she got home. 

Some guy was busy digging through the ice cream, apparently looking for something a bit fancier than the chocolate and vanilla which were all they seemed to have stocked, so Cassie leaned against the wall to wait, entertaining herself by counting the number of gross fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling. 

It took a few minutes, but the man did find the box of strawberry ice cream that he had apparently been looking for tucked in the back. When he turned around, Cassie thought nothing of it. He was attractive enough, but it looked like he had forgotten to shave for way too many days in a row and his face had that pinched up look to it of someone that had spent too long being either angry, or stressed, or sad, or worried. Then she saw his eyes, and she recognized him.

It felt like something fell out of her chest. Like her lungs fell to her feet with nothing there to catch them, nothing there to help her breathe. Like that Cassie Maddox from almost six years ago who never felt like a real person was suddenly thrown into the future, nothing changed, nothing gained. 

She felt like she was burning, and she forced herself to smile. “Hey, Rob.”

Rob Ryan smiled back. He looked awkward. She wondered if she did too. “Hi, Cassie. It’s been awhile. How are you?” 

“I’m okay.” She answered, the typical answer. “We’re kind of suffering with the heat right now, but I’m okay.”

“Yeah, the heat has been brutal.” He smiled - fake - and held up the carton of ice cream. “I guess we had the same idea.”

“Yeah. Can you hand me that chocolate?”

He smiled again, and this time Cassie thought it was a bit real. He purposely reached up to the highest shelf, one she would never be able to reach, and handed her the ice cream. “Thanks.” She said, tonelessly. She wanted to disappear. 

“Are you still working murder?” Rob asked, looking like he too wanted to vanish, yet wasn’t sure how to go about doing so. 

Cassie shook her head. “I transferred after, uh, you know. And I couldn’t work there with Sam still there anyway.”

Rob’s eyes bulged a bit, noticing for the first time the ring on her left hand. “Wow. Congratulations.” He looked like he felt a bit sick, and Cassie wasn’t sure if that reaction made her feel sad or horribly, horribly pleased that this was hurting him as much as it was hurting her. 

“Thanks.” They sort of stared at one another, before going to speak again at the same time. “I should really-”

“It’s getting sort of-”

They both cut off, and when it became clear she wasn’t going to continue, Rob resumed his statement. “It’s getting sort of late; I should probably get going. It was nice to see you. Maybe we should try to catch up some time? Bring Sam, get a drink, you know?”

She could tell from his face that he didn’t mean it.

Cassie nodded. “Yeah, I’d love too. My number is still the same, so you know how to reach me.”

She didn’t mean it either.

Rob left. Cassie stayed. She couldn’t deal with the idea of ending up behind him to check out.

Once it had been long enough that she was fairly certain he would be gone, Cassie went and checked out herself, not really aware of her surroundings but aware enough to get all the way out to her car. She closed the door, set the ice cream in the passenger seat, and stared at the steering wheel in front of her. 

This wasn’t supposed to happen. This wasn’t fucking supposed to happen. 

It had taken Cassie years to get her head on right after the last time she had seen Rob. It took her years to stop having the impulse to call Rob any time something good happened to her and any time something bad happened to her and any time something popped into her head that she just had to tell someone. It had taken years for her go-to person to be Sam instead of Rob, and she was terrified that this incident was going to throw Rob back into her thoughts.

Because Rob was somebody she wasn’t supposed to miss anymore. He had been the most important person in her life at one point, but it had been years, and she was supposed to be somebody different now. And she would have liked to think that he was too.

Except this still fucking hurt. It felt like there was a huge cavern in her chest where her heart used to be, her lungs trying too hard to fill up the empty space with something, anything, so she wouldn’t feel like she was drowning on nothing anymore. It felt wrong, so wrong, that seeing Rob sent her into this, when Sam was sitting at home, when Sam, one of the legitimately kindest and most lovely men she had ever met, was sitting at home waiting for her to come back. 

And that was what scared her. That no matter how many years passed, it would always be Rob. Rob, who had known her better than anyone else in the world. Rob, who still might. Rob, whom she hadn’t had a real conversation with in almost six years. Cassie was so scared that the deepest relationship that she would ever have was one that had already passed her by. That no matter what she did and no matter how much time passed, it would always be Rob who knew her best.

But just as much as all this scared her, it hurt when he didn’t know her. It hurt that he didn’t know she was married. It hurt that he didn’t know where she worked. It hurt that this man used to be her best friend, the person she loved more than anyone in the entire world, and they just made awkward small talk in a grocery store. 

Cassie wanted to laugh just as much as she wanted to cry. So she went home.

•

Cassie almost didn’t want to go inside. 

She was afraid that if she had to talk to Sam, she would cry. She would cry, and that would mean she lost. That she wasn’t strong enough. That one encounter with Rob could undo the years that she spent getting over him, the years that she had spent thinking that she was over him. 

But she loved Sam. So she got out of her car, grabbed the ice cream, and walked up the stairs to their apartment.

She scrambled around her pockets for her keys, shoving them in the doorway and turning them in the exact way that it took to make the door open. The way that she knew from all the times Sam had teased her about being able to pick the lock easier than using the key, and all the times he had patiently run through the trick to getting it open. The door creaked. She went to go inside.

Cassie froze in the doorway, her fingers wrapped so tight around her grocery bag that it hurt. Sam sat on their couch, flipping through a magazine. He raised an eyebrow, giving her the same stupid smile that she had accidentally fallen in love with. “Everything okay?”

She wanted to cry so hard. “I love you so, so much.”

+1  
“What the fuck is wrong with your hair?”

Stephen reached up to touch the back of his head. “What? What’s wrong with it?”

Antoinette rolled her eyes, an action that she made sure was over-dramaticized enough that Stephen had no chance of missing it. “Do you even brush it before you leave the house?”

He looked about as close to annoyed at her as Stephen Moran was capable of looking. “Ha. Funny.”

“Yeah, I’m a fucking comedian. Go look in the mirror.”

Stephen over-dramatically rolled his eyes back before disappearing into the bathroom to see what she was going on about. 

Stephen having gone to deal with his hair - honestly, how it was already standing up she had no idea, considering she had had to sit outside slamming on her horn for a good five minutes before he was finally ready for them to leave - Antoinette decided to go look for Sophie. It was the murder squad + friends of murder squad Christmas party, and god fucking forbid Breslin or, even worse, Roche, come along and try to talk to her. Sophie was good protection because she was pretty and looked nice so if she was there, nobody was paying attention to Antoinette, known asshole. 

Sophie was over in one of the less crowded corners, talking to a few people from her team. Antoinette thought she recognized one or two of them, but honestly who knows. She meets a lot of people and sometimes some of them kind of blend together.

Antoinette dodged a few floaters, someone who might have been Frank Mackey with a fake mustache (she wasn’t going to say anything; he could be someone else’s problem), O’Kelly lecturing some of the young guys about something, and had made it almost all the way across the crowded room when she slammed into someone. Someone holding a cup of what looked like it might have been red wine. 

Had Antoinette mentioned that she was wearing a white sweater?

“Oh my God, I am so sorry.” The woman Antoinette had run into glanced wide eyed between the huge red splash on Antoinette’s sweater and Antoinette’s face. 

Antoinette had been working on not tearing the head off of anyone who wronged her. She clenched her teeth. “It’s fine. My fault, anyway.”

“Shit, I don’t have it on me…” The woman was digging around her bag, looking more and more frustrated. “I thought...one second.” In a gesture that didn’t look like it should have occured in real life, she reached into the crowd and somehow pulled out Sam O’Neil. “Do you have that laundry thing?”

O’Neil looked between Antoinette and the woman a few times. “Jesus Christ.”

“Sam! This is an emergency!”

“Right, sorry.” He pulled something out of his pocket and gave it to her. 

“Thanks, love you, bye.” And with that, O’Neil was gone.

Antoinette generally thought of herself as being pretty on top of things, but a lot had happened in the past few seconds and she needed a moment to catch up. “I’m sorry, who are you!”

“Oh, I’m Cassie. Sam’s wife.” The woman, Cassie, squinted at her. “You’re...Conway, right? Antoinette? Sam’s mentioned you a few times. Says you’re a pretty kick ass detective.” She held up her laundry stick. “Hey, if you come with me to the bathroom, I can clean that up for you.”

Antoinette considered saying no for a fraction of a second, but she did really like this sweater. “Sure.”

The two of them headed for the bathrooms, getting over there right as Stephen was coming back, his hair a bit flatter (and doused in considerably more water) than it had been when Antoinette had seen him last. Sometimes Stephen was really predictable. Right now, looking at Cassie holding a wine glass and a laundry stick and Antoinette covered in red wine, he was making exactly the face Antoinette would have expected from him. 

Sometimes it occurred to her that the two of them knew one another way too well. It was kind of gross. 

“Are you okay?” 

“Steve, this is Cassie.” Antoinette said drily. Cassie waved. “She’s O’Neil’s wife and I ran into her and she spilled her drink all over me.”

Cassie held up a peace sign and then immediately looked like she regretted doing so. “This has been a really wild first impression.”

“You’re Cassie?” Stephen looked vaguely fascinated. “O’Neil talks about you constantly.”

Cassie grinned. “Oh, I know.”

“Not to be ruining this, but…” Antoinette gestured to her sweater.

“Right!” Cassie practically pushed Antoinette into the bathroom. “Nice to meet you Steve! See you around.”

Once they were both inside the empty bathroom and out of the noise of the party, things were much calmer. 

“Are you wearing anything under that?” Cassie asked, opening up her laundry stick. At Antoinette’s raised eyebrow, she laughed. “Sorry, in case you couldn’t tell, that’s not my first glass of wine that you’re wearing and that sounded weirder than I meant it. It’s a lot easier to do this if you aren’t wearing the sweater.”

“Right.” Antoinette pulled her sweater over her head, revealing the tank top she had on underneath and realising for the first time how cold it was in this bathroom. She tried not to let her teeth chatter. “Wow.”

“I’ll try to be quick.” Cassie said as Antoinette tossed her her sweater. She carefully traced the red stain, being as quick as possible while also getting everything covered. “So.” She said after a few seconds of her working and Antoinette watching in silence. “You’re the only woman on the squad. That shit must be fucking wild.”

“That’s one way of describing it.” Antoinette leaned over her shoulder to watch, hoping really hard that this stick would actually do what it was supposed to. “Roche and Breslin were and continue to be complete fuckheads, but it’s gotten better.”

“Oh, that’s good!” Cassie stepped back and took a look at the sweater. “That looks good. Now it’s just got to sit for a minute. Anyway, I’m glad things are getting better for you! I know Sam was a bit worried for you guys at first, but he said after you and Steve got closer and that whole incident with whatever the fuck that guy’s name was, things started to go a lot better.”

Antoinette for about six months ago would have been really annoyed about anyone she never meet knowing her business, but the Antoinette currently in the bathroom at a Christmas party with her co worker's wife was surprisingly okay with it all. Cassie just seemed really friendly, and O’Neil himself had always made it clear he was rooting for her and Stephen, even in the early days where everything was sort of awful. 

“I think it’s done.” Cassie said eventually. “Now we just have to rinse off the soap.”

Antoinette paused for a second. “Like, with water?”

Cassie waved her off. “Oh, don’t worry about it. We can dry it off under the hand dryer.

The two of them rinsed off the sweater and, as Cassie proposed, managed to dry it off somewhat sufficiently under the hand dryer. 

“I think it actually looks pretty good.” Cassie said after a few seconds of them both staring at where the stain used to be on Antoinette’s sweater. “I mean, you can see it if you look pretty hard. But unless you’ve got someone you plan on having stare at your chest all night, I think you should be good.” 

“Great.” Antoinette pulled the sweatshirt back over her head. “Thank you so much.”

“Yeah, no problem.” Cassie said cheerfully. If she was being really honest, Antoinette thought that Cassie was enjoying all this chaos way too much, but maybe some people were just that cheerful about things and maybe Antoinette just enjoyed being a constant downer. “I did sort of dump my drink on you, so I guess we’re even. You should come over sometime though! To mine and Sam’s. For dinner or something. It could be fun.”

“Sure.” Antoinette said, both surprised at how genuine Cassie sounded when she asked and how genuine she herself was when she answered. “Anyway, we should probably get back to the party.”

Both of them left the bathroom to where Sam and Stephen were waiting a few feet away talking about something or the other. 

Stephen made a ridiculous face at her, trying to do something with his eyebrows and failing miserable. Antoinette hated that it made her smile. “I can’t believe that you were making fun of me for my hair and then immediately turned around and got wine dumped down your front.”

“Don’t get too excited, this will never happen again.” Antoinette deadpanned. 

Cassie laughed, leaning into Sam and pressing a kiss to his cheek. “Sorry for almost ruining your positive relationship with your coworker, but I invited her to dinner and I think we’re friends now.”

“Yeah, best friends.” Antoinette said, with a pointed look at Stephen which he laughed off. “Anyway, I was trying to find Sophie before all of this, and I don’t think she’s left yet. It was nice to meet you, Cassie.”

“You too. Oh, and you too Steve, even though it was only briefly.” 

Sam gave them a wave, and Stephen and Antoinette headed off to find Sophie. 

“What are you smiling about?” Antoinette asked after a few seconds, having caught Stephen glancing over at her and smiling like he was trying really hard not too every few seconds.

“Oh, I’m just thinking about you trying so hard to avoid getting noticed by half the people here that you run into a random woman and get wine dumped all over you.”

“God, you’re such a fucking prick.” Antoinette said, although she, completely against her will, might have been smiling too.

•

“They sort of remind me of you and Rob.” Sam said absently, watching Antoinette and Stephen tease at one another as they searched for Sophie. He immediately stiffened, seemingly realising what he had said. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

Cassie waved him off. It had been interesting. After she had run into Rob, she had thought it would get worse. She had thought that she would have been back in that mental state where every mention of him sent her into a complete downward spiral. But it had actually been the opposite. Weirdly, having an awful, painful, heartbreaking interaction with him had sort of been closure in it’s own right. It had hurt, but she knew it was over now, and there was no point in dwelling on it. And the fact that she could be having fun at a party and not have everything ruined by a simple mention of Rob was proof to that.

“No, they totally do. I’m pretty sure they have a bit more sense than he and I ever did though. At least enough not to fuck it all up.” She kept her tone light and jokey, and was happy when Sam seemed able to relax. She didn’t want him worrying about her when he didn’t need to be. “You know I love you, right?”

“Never heard that one before,” He joked, resting his arm on her shoulder. “It’s getting late. Do you think you’re ready to go?” 

“Yeah.” Cassie bounced a bit on the balls of her feet. “Before anything else happens.” She squinted, looking at some guy hanging out by the door. “Hey, is that Frank Mackey with a fake mustache?”

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be for Christmas because the last part took place at a Christmas party but unless you live in like three places Christmas is now over rip me i guess.  
> Some notes:  
> 1\. This whole thing is based off of Fourth of July by Fall Out Boy and the two week long breakdown I had after listening to it for the first time in years last month. It's especially inspired by the line I used in the title, but all of the song applies and I totally recommend reading the lyrics and crying as I did like five times while writing this.  
> 2\. Apparently fall out boy has a lot of "i miss you but i shouldn't" songs so this was also inspired by Miss Missing You ("i miss missing you now and then", Band the Doldrums ("i couldn't bring myself to call except to call it quits", and GINASFS ("some night they get so bad that you almost pick up the phone"). I don't know what Pete Wentz was going through but shoutout to him for hitting the mood spot on and for making all of it hurt.  
> 3\. I'm sorry the part with Rafe was such a mess lol I honestly don't know what happened, it was going so well and then it just stopped. And then the last part got sort of out of hand, but it was fun so who cares.  
> 4\. Not super important but i am obsessed with the idea that a while after the Lexie incident, Abby, Rafe, and Justin tried to pull their lives together and hesitantly became friends again.  
> 5\. Tumblr is goth-icon-mary-shelley if you all want to be friends! Thanks for reading etc. and have a nice day!


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